


bed

by soulshrapnel



Series: Villainous Kinktober fills 2020 [26]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Established Relationship, M/M, Sharing a Bed, rated M for Medical details, vader takes his suit off
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-26
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:34:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27212755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soulshrapnel/pseuds/soulshrapnel
Summary: Tarkin would like to get Vader, at least partly unsuited, in his bed. This is somewhat logistically challenging.(Kinktober, Day 26: Stripping)
Relationships: Wilhuff Tarkin/Darth Vader
Series: Villainous Kinktober fills 2020 [26]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1947379
Comments: 11
Kudos: 33
Collections: Kinktober 2020





	bed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Spooky-Spaghetties (Windershins)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Windershins/gifts).



> This was the very first prompt that I got for this challenge, way back in early September, and I love it very much. Specifically: _""i would love to see a Tarkin/Vader where Vader gets to be at least somewhat unsuited in Tarkin's bed. or any bed, really. Just somewhere explicitly comfy with, like, blankets."_
> 
> I hesitated a bit over what series / what timeline to put this in. I don't think M4 would have approved it until after the end of "Playing With Fire," but the co-emperors series is like "so much drama is happening, when would they have had TIME." In the end I decided to yeet it over to the "New Toys" AU, even though it's strictly these two characters without any mention of Daala. I think this AU is just becoming a general grab bag for "stuff where these specific characters have taken over the galaxy and now they have time to be relaxed and sexy and happy about things, in any combination."

The palace servants had taken an annoying amount of time setting things up. Time enough for Vader to stew in his thoughts and wonder why he'd agreed to this. But he was _not_ backing out. Vader was better than that.

So when Tarkin smiled to him, hungry and inviting, in the Imperial Palace's parlor - when Tarkin took him by the hand and led him into the big gray bedroom with its canopy bed - Vader did not resist.

He had seen this room before. Last time, it had not contained the devices that the servants had so carefully set up in its corners. A big space-heater and a big humidifier, both of them top of the line, medical-grade machines whose settings could be adjusted within a tenth of a degree. An oxygen tank. A thick steel shelf, shiny and recently cleaned, where the outer components of Vader's armor could rest without being contaminated. The dove-gray sheets looked different too, though Vader couldn't be sure; he wasn't the kind of person who paid much attention to bedsheets.

Tarkin had already undergone his own preparations: a thorough shower, for one, as was always required before he touched Vader's skin. He'd dressed again in only his gray bathrobe. Vader enjoyed the sight of his lover like that, the slender legs emerging from under the fabric, the sharp blue-gray eyes gazing fearlessly up at him.

"Will this do?" Tarkin asked. "Or do you have a way of telling with your armor still on?"

"It looks adequate," said Vader, "but I would have to see."

Tarkin's small smile flicked a half-centimeter wider, and he beckoned.

Reluctantly, Vader sat down on the edge of the bed. He had agreed to this. He and Tarkin and his medical droid had discussed the risks and they'd made a plan, and it was a good plan. He could still end it if he wanted to. No one could contermand Vader if he decided to back out, even after the servants had gone to such trouble. Tarkin would understand.

But Vader didn't want to back out. Not really.

He reached up and unlatched the outer, flared portion of his helmet, drawing it away and removing it from his head. Underneath, his scalp was bare.

Vader held his helmet in his lap, taking in the sensation of the air. This room had been heated and humidified to the correct degree, which meant that, even if it wasn't the kind of air Vader could breathe, it would be safe to expose his skin. Really, even normal air on Vader's skin wouldn't have hurt in small doses. But he had to check if the sensation was _subjectively_ different from normal - such things could distress him in ways that made him a danger to others.

He felt none of that now, though. No chill against his scalp, no strange sudden unease or discomfort, only the nervousness with which he'd already come into the room.

"I believe it is safe," he said. He placed the helmet down on the shelf with a clank.

Tarkin edged closer, his mind coruscating with curiosity and interest. He tentatively reached out a hand. "May I-?"

"Not the mask," Vader said. He'd let Tarkin touch other parts of his life support before, but he was territorial about the mask. He pointed to the oxygen tank beside the bed, which came with its own, smaller mask attached - not a full-face device, but a smaller, transparent one which would cover his mouth and nose. "Hold that one ready."

Tarkin moved as instructed, and Vader took a hold of the front of his mask. A complex and delicate series of catches kept the mask affixed to his collar and to the breath pumps and other necessary devices. Vader carefully unlatched all those with the Force. He made a note of the precise location of the shelf, and then he lifted the mask up off his face.

His vision immediately blurred, and he fought off a choking sensation as the thin air of the room replaced the usual steady pulse of his respirator. He'd known he wouldn't be able to breathe this, even if it was the right temperature. Holding his mask in one hand, he reached out with the other, and Tarkin immediately handed him the smaller mask. He used the Force as much as his hands to press it into place, and after a brief pause, the air pushed itself reassuringly into his lungs again. Vader sat there a moment longer, letting the feeling of breathing sink back in.

"Is that all right?" said Tarkin's voice beside him.

"Yes," said Vader. As always, his voice had changed, becoming reedy and weak.

He put his suit's mask down on the steel shelf. He heard and felt the clunk, more than saw it. Vader's eyes were heat-damaged, and his vision without the mask's corrective lenses was poor. His hearing wasn't much better, but he could still understand Tarkin's voice, so long as Tarkin was close to him in a quiet room and speaking clearly. With that and his sense of Tarkin in the Force, he would be able to navigate an encounter here.

It was the Force, not his sight or hearing, that allowed him to sense the way Tarkin looked at him. With inexplicable pleasure. With attraction.

Tarkin had seen Vader's unmasked face before, of course. He'd seen Vader fully naked. Vader was well aware that Tarkin enjoyed that sight, even though he couldn't fathom why. Vader knew what he looked like: a pasty, ugly, hairless face, covered more in scars than skin, with a pair of bloodshot, sulfur-yellow eyes. But Tarkin liked when his lovers trusted him with their vulnerable sides. And Vader's body was vulnerable, in a fucked-up kind of way.

When Tarkin had seen Vader undressed before, it had been in special medical facilities. It had been a clinical process, done not by Vader's hands or by a lover's, but by a specialized droid. Vader could do the outer parts himself, but it was fiddly and time-consuming and the droid was faster. Since his accident, Vader had never gotten undressed in a place like this, a normal bedroom, where normal people might disrobe with their lovers. He'd sometimes pressed Tarkin down in a bed, still wearing his suit, and used the Force on him in pleasurable ways; he'd even lain on his back on top of a bed if that was what an act required. But he'd never actually been _in_ a bed, suited or otherwise.

"Here," he said, motioning Tarkin closer. "There is a clasp here."

Tarkin leaned in, and his form resolved from a gray and flesh-pale blur back into clarity. Vader guided his hand to a hidden catch where his cape connected to his shoulderplate.

"Oh," said Tarkin, in something that was not quite surprise, as he undid the clasp and watched the cape fall away from Vader's armored shoulders. Vader watched the way his lips parted as he looked down at Vader's body, as he considered what an honor he'd been given.

It was only then that Vader knew this had been the right choice.

"The shoulder armor," he said, moving Tarkin's hand to the right spot, "has a series of catches. Here."

Tarkin got the first catch immediately, and Vader used the Force to open the others. He let Tarkin lift up the heavy shoulder plates in his careful hands and place them down on the shelf.

They moved carefully, one piece of armor at a time, in the typical medical sequence, Tarkin's hands and the Force working together. The belt with its weapons and tools attached. The indicator panels, though those remained loosely connected at Vader's side, like the oxygen tank.

Once the plates at Vader's chest and torso came off, he had to lie down. Vader's spine was fragile, and if he tried to move vigorously without his armor, there was a chance he could injure himself. Tarkin pulled the bed's gray blankets to the side and made a space big enough that Vader could lie there on his back, with nothing under him but the bottom sheet. The thick collar covering his neck, which he had not yet removed, was sturdy enough to hold his head without hurting any more than usual.

"Are you comfortable?" Tarkin asked.

"Comfortable enough." Vader was literally always in pain. But lying supine, on a suitably padded surface, was one of the least annoying positions. The bed was sturdy enough to take his weight. He could lie like this.

"Stop me if this doesn't feel good."

Tarkin took a hold of a couple of pillows. With a small, knowing smile - Vader _knew_ that smile; it meant that Tarkin expected this to be _good_ \- he moved them gently underneath Vader's head, until he could feel them, strange and soft against his scalp.

They were warm. They were even softer than he'd expected - he remembered that Tarkin and the droid had gone back and forth about acceptable fabrics for the bedclothes. But Vader had tuned out those details. The names of fabrics meant little to him.

He had felt different fabrics before, though. There was a little band sewn into the lining of his suit, around the upper arm, in his favorite of those fabrics. Shimmersilk, he thought it was called. A token to remember Tarkin by.

Tarkin, with his devious mind, appeared to have requisitioned a whole set of sheets and pillowcases in the same material. It was silky and smooth, which was such a foreign sensation against the back of Vader's head that it almost alarmed him. But he loved it. He closed his eyes.

Tarkin trailed his fingertips lightly along Vader's face. Vader kept his eyes closed; he felt the way Tarkin was looking at him. "You like that, do you?"

"Yes."

"What do you want next?"

Vader reached up and gently caught Tarkin's bare hand in his gloved one. "Too much of my suit is still on."

He guided Tarkin's hand down to the last of the outer armors - the plate covering his groin. Vader suppressed a shiver as Tarkin's fingers found the hidden catches there. He was still in a state, underneath, that most people would describe as fully clothed. And Tarkin had touched every part of Vader's naked body before. But it was still not normal for Vader to feel hands between his legs, even through the suit's inner lining. It would never feel normal.

He felt, more than saw, Tarkin watching his face carefully. Vader wasn't even sure what his face was doing.

"That is as much as a meditation chamber takes," said Vader, as this last bit of outer armor clanked down onto its shelf.

"Would you like me to tuck you in?" Tarkin asked, and there was a small irony in his tone. They were both men of action, men who wanted the world to fear them, and even in full sincerity Tarkin couldn't make the offer without smirking a little at its childishness. But he _was_ sincere. He wanted Vader wrapped up in his bed like a fly in a web. And he was also asking, implicitly, if this was where Vader wanted to stop.

"Not yet," said Vader. "Here."

He tugged Tarkin up to crouch over him, close enough that he could open his eyes and see him clearly. He wanted to kiss him, but that was impossible thanks to the breath mask. He settled for working his gloved hand through Tarkin's thinning, graying hair, while Tarkin kissed his cheeks and his forehead. Even the lightest brush of lips against Vader's skin carried pain - the touch of the pillows carried pain; everything did - but it was a small ache and it did not bother him, not weighed against the delicious pleasure of letting his lover touch him. Very few things ever touched Vader anymore. He'd learned to savor them.

He reached a gloved hand inside Tarkin's bathrobe, over his chest, and tugged. "Take this off."

"Of course," said Tarkin. He shrugged it away and returned, nude, to kiss Vader's forehead.

Vader let another breath fill his lungs and be pushed out. He wanted more. He had to steel himself a little before he reached for it.

"Your pillows," he said, looking up as Tarkin moved gently above him. Tarkin's jawline was pretty, he thought. The divots of his slender neck were pretty. That was about all he could see without the mask on. "Let me-"

He closed his eyes again to concentrate. He used the Force to pull in what seemed like an appropriate number of pillows - Tarkin's bed had quite a few - and nestled them more densely under his head, to the point of compressing them. He had lain on his back with Tarkin, without the collar on, many times before; but that had been on a special medical table padded for the purpose, not a makeshift bunch of linens. He had discussed this part of it with his droid, and she'd agreed there was a risk - his neck was among the weakest parts of his spine - but it was a manageable one as long as he lay still, with appropriate support, and stopped as soon as something feld bad.

Vader reached up to the complicated locking mechanism that held the armored collar around his neck. "Help me take this off."

Tarkin did not need to be told twice. Vader did most of the unlocking himself, but he let Tarkin's hands guide the collar away from him. He pulled the pillows in more densely to support his head at the height it was used to. It took some fiddling, but after a minute of Force-rearrangement he had something that felt comfortable and safe.

It was strange, not only touching the fabric but feeling it support his weight, letting himself sink into it. There was an ache to it like everything, but it was a nice ache. Maybe this was how normal people felt, sleeping in beds every night. Vader could no longer remember what that had used to feel like for him.

He kept Tarkin moving after that. A complicated system of catches and fastenings held the inner layer of Vader's armor together, the sealed suit of self-cleaning fabrics that protected the surface of his body from the elements, and he guided Tarkin's hands to each necessary place, one at a time. They peeled away the inner suit from his upper arms and chest, and then from his belly. Vader knew those parts of him were as fucked-up to look at as his face, but Tarkin liked them. They were riddled with old gashes and with devices that could not be removed, in a bed or otherwise, because they penetrated Vader's body permanently. Vader didn't like thinking about that at all. But he liked the emotions that rose in Tarkin's mind when Tarkin saw him, admiration and protectiveness and desire, an awareness of what a show of trust it was for Vader to let him in this far.

Vader could feel the bottom sheet against the skin of his back now, the same fabric as the pillowcases, soft and smooth and strange.

He wanted to keep going, but he did not want to strip himself below the waist. Between Vader's legs there were all sorts of unsightly things - a catheter, an elaborate waste disposal system, even his actual genitals, which were mostly useless. Tarkin had seen those things before, but it felt obscene to expose them outside a medical setting, in a bed that wasn't even his own. Vader did not want to do that.

Instead, on impulse, he moved Tarkin's hands to his thigh.

"Hold on," he said.

Vader couldn't take off his heavy black boots - not in the way that most people took boots off. His arms and hands were high-end prosthetics built to mimic the precise skeletal structure of human limbs, wrapped in armorweave gloves for protection and aesthetic effect. But the legs and feet were more abstract structures, levers and springs designed more for the motion of walking than for close resemblance to a human limb. They were fused to the shape of the knee-high boots around them.

But it was still possible to take off the prosthetics. They were calibrated to his nervous system removably; the process took a minute or two, but they could be set aside at the end of the day, put on again the next morning, and they would remember how to connect through the skin of his stumps to the nerves that controlled them.

Vader used the Force to do that, methodically disengaging each clasp that held the prosthetics in place at mid-thigh, shutting down the functions that managed nerve conduction in each direction. Tarkin waited patiently through it, keeping his hands at Vader's thighs where Vader had put them. Feeling the mechanical parts move, through the thick fabric, against his fingers.

"Pull," Vader said at last, and his whole leg from the mid-thigh down came off in Tarkin's hands. Tarkin placed it, even more carefully than the rest, on the shelf, and then they repeated the process with the other leg. Vader shifted his thighs, hidden in the empty, flapping legs of his body glove. Sometimes he felt strange things, phantom sensations in his imaginary ankles and toes, but he did not feel them now. His body was already too engaged with new sensations to want to make up more.

Finally he brought his gloved hands up close to his face and looked at them. The durasteel mechanisms of his arms were visible, from where they started - one at mid-bicep, the other reaching almost all the way to the shoulder - to where they disappeared into the armorweave gloves.

Vader's mechanical hands were a part of his body he didn't think he'd shown to Tarkin before. It wasn't that he felt any shyer about his prosthetics than he did about his ruined flesh. But Vader's prosthetics weren't as sensitive as actual skin. The gloves were normally fastened so carefully to the wrists and fingers that it was easier just to take off the whole arm. He simply hadn't bothered to do otherwise.

This time, he undid the delicate fastenings with the Force, and he drew away each glove in turn, exposing the intricate metal of his bare hands.

He could feel Tarkin looking at him with an ever-more-intense, curious interest. "I don't think you've shown me your bare hands before, Vader. May I-?"

Vader reached for him. Tarkin took his hand and ran his fingers over the metal, careful and curious. Vader's hands could pick up minute gradations in pressure, but they were not good at temperature or texture, which rendered the contact less interesting than skin contact. Tarkin's mind was interesting, though, and the feel of his gentle fingers was not unpleasant. It didn't even hurt, since his hands, unlike the flesh-and-blood parts of him, were in perfect working order.

Tarkin brought Vader's hand closer to his face and lightly kissed the knuckles. Vader moved his fingers, stroking the skin of Tarkin's indrawn cheeks and narrow jaw. He did have more finesse without the gloves, it seemed. With one fingertip, he brushed Tarkin's lower lip, and when Tarkin's lips parted for him he pushed inward. His fingers touched the tip of Tarkin's tongue. Tarkin made a small, pleased noise.

"Well," he said, once Vader withdrew. He trailed a hand down Vader's chest, light and gentle. "That's you. How are you feeling?"

"Good," said Vader.

"Do you want to try the blankets now?"

For a split second Vader blinked, confused; he was already trying the blankets. The pillows were already strange and soft beneath his head, and the bottom sheet was smooth under his back. Then he remembered what their plan was, and that beds also had _top_ sheets, and other bedding on top of that.

"Yes," he said.

Tarkin picked up the top sheet and coverlet from where he'd folded them away, and he gently drew them back in to drape over Vader's body. He settled into the position that they usually used for cuddling: lying on his side, his chest and belly pressed against Vader, an arm loosely draped over Vader's chest. He pulled the covers up over himself too, cocooning them together.

The feel of it was overwhelming. The same lovely, silky texture as the sheet underneath him, but it was different this way, pressed against him by nothing but the sheets' own miniscule gravity. Tarkin had played with Vader and textures before, giving him small swatches to brush over his skin, and this was like the best parts of that game except with _all of his body at once._

His face must have done something, because he felt Tarkin radiating a self-satisfied delight. "How does that feel?"

Impulsively, Vader grabbed the sheet and pulled it up over his head. Not to block Tarkin's view, but simply to feel it on his face, too - at least the cheeks and forehead, the parts that didn't have to be covered by the stupid breath mask. He pressed it against himself as firmly as he dared, to the point of pain.

Vader hadn't lain under the covers with someone like this for so long, not since-

He had learned, over long months with Tarkin, how _not_ to get distracted by thoughts of Padmé. Those lead nowhere good.

Instead he refocused on Tarkin, peeking out again from under the covers so as to pull him closer. Tarkin obligingly moved in, kissing the sides of Vader's face, running his bare hand gently along the skin of Vader's chest.

"I like how it feels," Vader confessed.

"Good." Tarkin was close in enough that Vader could see his face in detail and Vader could feel his arousal in the Force. Tarkin was not naturally a gentle person, but he knew how to soften himself to deal with Vader's body, and it was no secret that he loved the process: being let in where no other lover since Vader's accident had ever been. Vader could share Tarkin's senses with the Force if he chose, but for once he didn't want to, not right now. He wanted to think about his own body for once.

He didn't mind Tarkin's ministrations, though, the touch of skin and gentle lips against his ravaged skin, alongside the feel of the sheets. He reciprocated where he could, moving his hands across Tarkin's body and watching how he reacted to the strange, metal touch. They both got to savor an unfamiliar sensation today, and that seemed right to Vader.

"You know," Tarkin said at last, coming up for air, "even the first time I met you, back when you were a Jedi, I knew I wanted to get you in my bed."

"I was married," Vader protested, amused.

"Yes, well." Tarkin's eyes flicked to the opulent gray canopy around them, here in the heights of the Imperial Palace. "I'll admit I never imagined it would be _this_ bed."

Vader pulled him closer. With the Force, he reached out in another direction, and turned off the light.


End file.
